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“But…” I started to protest, thinking of Matthew.
“You can trust me, son. I will make sure you are kept out of it. You and your boyfriend.”
I did trust my father. He’d never given me any reason not to.
I started for the door. Stopped. Turned back. “Thanks for coming, Dad. I didn’t expect you to show in person.”
“Yes, well, someone seemed rather offended I sent only my lawyer last time.”
I half smiled. “Yeah, but I understand appearances matter. Especially during election time.”
Are you even a politician’s son if you don’t keep up appearances?
“I will never be more concerned about the way I appear over the way my son feels,” he said. “I’m very sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
In that moment, I felt Matthew’s hurt maybe a little more profoundly because a father’s unflinching love was something he should have had. Something that was theoretically a child’s by birth, but regrettably, a theory is never a guarantee.
I never did like John McClaren. Call it secondhand dislike because of his relationship with my father. But now?
Now secondhand dislike seemed polite for the way that man made my blood boil.
I turned to go once more, almost homesick for Matthew’s face.
“I still want to meet him.”
I looked over my shoulder. “I told you it’s not a good idea.”
“Give me a chance to change his mind,” my father requested. “The only way to break the bond of DNA is to create something even stronger.”
Those words hit me profoundly. Maybe because he was able to articulate something I saw but could never explain.
This was Elite. A group of people who forged their own bond, creating something stronger than DNA. Creating something untouchable to those on the outside.
I was glad Matthew was a part of that.
I just hoped, after tonight, they’d still let me in too.
29
Prism
I took the AirPods out of my ears. Arsen’s video had long since gone quiet, and I had no phone to connect them to. Keeping them in seemed like a reminder of the shit I didn’t have right now. Shit I really wanted.
I’m going to have to learn to live without him.
Not relearn because there was no going back to how it was before. My life was permanently divided into three parts.
Life before Arsen.
With him.
Without.
Yeah, that part in the middle was so brief it barely registered on the clock of life, which just gave irrefutable proof that the heart had its own way of measuring time.
Elite pulled up to the townhouse, all our cars practically creating a parade. It felt more like a funeral procession, but I kept that dark thought to myself because it was grim as hell. And because they’d shown up for me.
